US Intel-Sharing Ties At Risk If Allies Keep Using Untrusted Telecom Firms - State Dept.

US Intel-Sharing Ties at Risk if Allies Keep Using Untrusted Telecom Firms - State Dept.

The United States will have to reassess ways of sharing intelligence information with allies if they continue to use "untrustworthy telecom vendors," Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Cyber and International Communications and Information Policy Robert Strayer said on Friday

# WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th January, 2020) The United States will have to reassess ways of sharing intelligence information with allies if they continue to use "untrustworthy telecom vendors," Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Cyber and International Communications and Information Policy Robert Strayer said on Friday.

"We are cognizant ... [that] if we share info with them [it may be subject to compromise," Srayer told reporters in a press briefing. "We will at least have to reassess how to share information."

Strayer said the United States was already in talks with allied nations about its reluctance to send sensitive information to them because they used untrusted telecom vendors.

"We don't want to see that [intelligence-sharing relationship] degraded by untrustworthy telecom vendors," he said. "We are talking to our partners ... because they are using untrusted telecom vendors."

In 2019, Congress passed a law requiring the US intelligence community to assess the safety of telecom vendors carrying such sensitive and classified communications, Strayer recalled.

In December 2019, Portugal announced that it would not exclude Chinese companies such as Huawei from supplying technology for Lisbon's next-generation 5G wireless network, rejecting US pressure to do so.